Jason Cohen, founder of Smart Bear and WPEngine joined the WP Late Night crew for episode number eleven. We discussed WordPress 3.4 RC1, nine years of WordPress, editing core files, and WordPress on mobile devices.

3 thoughts on “WP Late Night #11: “Cowboy code it” with Jason Cohen”

Just wanted to comment on the commentary regarding JetPack eventually selling plugins and still being allowed in the WordPress.org repository… it already does and is.

VaultPess is one of the JetPack plugins that you can choose to install and it is a paid plugin. JetPack actively promotes purchasing VaultPress as one of the paid options.

The argument you will most likely hear is that VaultPress is “free” to download and install and therefore that is okay. But is it really free when it requires a monthly fee to actually use? Not at all.

I have no issues with the SaaS model that VaultPress uses, it’s a great business model for selling software. But it’s not the only one. I’m not going to tell people what they can and can’t do as far as the business model they use and if they aren’t violating the WordPress license, I think it is wrong for people in the community to do so.

It’s a shame that the WP App Store will not be embraced by certain people in the community, but ultimately it’s the community that will dictate what is acceptable and successful and what is not.

That’s the beauty of plugins and themes. If you don’t like it, don’t install it. Problem solved. Ultimately the WordPress community as a whole will benefit from every successful WordPress product and service that fills a need in the ecosystem.

The fact of the matter is qute simple and I touched on it above and it was mentioned in the podcast… if the community did not want commercial plugins and themes we wouldn’t have so many highly successful commercial theme vendors, commercial plugin vendors or marketplaces. But we do.

Because I was wondering if plugins can simply do that and get included. And as far as I can see that VaultPress is not the only one. Numerous third party (paid services)… Aweber etc has their plugins. Those plugins require the user to connect with Aweber in order for it to work.